Bonchurch
The site of present-day Bonchurch was inhabited in prehistoric times as various bones and flint instruments found there testify. It enters traditional history with the visit of a Saxon missionary priest named winfrith, who was born in Devon about the year 680; he preached to the little population of fisher-folk. Eventually martyred abroad, he was canonised as St. Boniface. His work at Bonchurch was later continued by monks from the Abbey of Lyra in Normandy, who landed at the part of the shore still called Monks' Bay. They are credited with the building of the original Church, dedicated to St. Boniface, which gave its name to the parish; the derivation of the name Bonchurch is uncertain.
The village is recorded in the famous Domesday Book as Bonecerce, the manor or farm being bestowed upon one of the Conqueror's Norman followers, and the tithes given to the Abbey of Lyra. The locality was noted, then and later, for its quarries, stone being shipped to the mainland and the Continent.
The only recorded event in the Middle Ages is a landing by a French raiding party in 1545, one of many such attacks suffered by the Island at that period.
In the 17th century Charles I came to Bonchurch whilst out riding with his attendants. He met a funeral procession approaching the churchyard and learned that one of his loyal adherents was being laid to rest.
By the end of the 18th century Bonchurch was becoming well known as a place of secluded beauty and genial climate. Gentlemen were having houses built there, or existing ones converted and enlarged, as in the cases of East Dene and Undermount. The Pond was then an osier swamp, from which the local fishermen got the material for their lobster-pots; but in 1800 a Mr. Hadfield, who lived at St. Boniface House, which stood on the site of the present Junior School playing field, had the Pond drained, and the banks planted. It was further improved later on.
The 19th century was the Golden Age of Bonchurch, the age of its famous residents and visitors, and of the building of some of its notable houses, such as Upper Mount (later Coombe Wood and now Peacock Vane), and Woodlynch. This was subsequent to the two great landslips of 1810 and 1818, which resulted in the lovely wild wooded coastal tract which is now so much admired. Village life and conditions remained somewhat primitive; roads were rough and rock-strewn; an old man from Newport delivered letters every weekday, at twopence for posting and twopence for delivery; provisions had to be obtained from Godshill, and the doctor from Newport. Ventnor, however, was rapidly developing from a small village into a sought-after health resort, and soon became the modern urban neighbour of ancient Bonchurch.
Few villages can boast of more literary associations than Bon- church. In 1819 John Keats, while staying at Shanklin, gave an account of his visit to Bonchurch in a charming letter to his sister, declaring that he "might win the heart of a lady – and the rheumatism – if he could play a guitar outside the romantic cottage windows of the village".
In 1844 the Old Church was the scene of the funeral of Thomas Carlyle's friend John Sterling, who had come to Ventnor for his health's sake, residing at Hillside House. Several literary notables attended, including Carlyle and Tennyson. A lesser-known writer was the Rev. Williams Adams, who lived at Winterbourne. He was the author of several religious stories, and he gave the money from their sales to the building fund of the new Church. It was he who, in 1847, laid the foundation stone, but he did not live to see the building completed. His best-known book was "The Shadow of the Cross"; to commemorate this his grave in the old churchyard is surmounted by a horizontal iron cross, the shadow of which falls on the stone. The most celebrated visitor to Bonchurch was Charles Dickens, who spent seven months at Winterbourne, where he wrote part of his great novel "David Copperfield". Ibis friend, the famous Punch cartoonist John Leech, was also staying in the village, and one of his drawings depicts Dickens in the showerbath he had contrived for himself on the shore, by having a little but built, enclosing the waterfall which still dashes down there. Dickens mentions in a letter the possibility of Queen Victoria visiting Bonchurch, which she may well have done during one of her drives from Osborne.
Another Punch contributor and friend of Dickens, the Rev. James White, lived at Upper Mount, and later at Woodlynch. Here he entertained several literary celebrities, including Dickens, Thackeray and Tennyson, and these hilarious parties, with their gin punch, were probably the cause of Dickens' biliousness, for which he blames the "smashing" climate of Bonchurch.
In 1850 Lord Macauley stayed at Madeira Hall, and there wrote part of his famous "History of England" ; and in 1868 Longfellow stayed briefly at Bonchurch Hotel (now a block of flats).
A later poet closely associated with Bonchurch was Swinburne, whose father bought East Dene in 1841 as a holiday residence. The future poet was baptised in the Old Church in 1843, when he was five years old; and many of his boyhood holidays were spent at East Dene. The family gave land for the site of the new Church, and in its churchyard are the graves of the poet and members of his family. An interesting resident was Miss Elizabeth Sewell, who lived at Ashcliffe (now Grey Walls), and who also lies in the churchyard. The stories she wrote are not remarkable, but her Journal contains interesting accounts of her life in the village. Her chief claim to fame is as a pioneer of higher education for girls, for she founded at her home a girls' boarding-school, which later moved to larger premises in Ventnor.
The most recent literary resident was Mr. de Vere Stacpoole, who lived at Cliff Dene, and who donated the Pond (which was in his grounds) to the Ventnor Council, in memory of his first wife. His best-known book "The Blue Lagoon", was not written at Cliff Dene, as is often claimed, but in another book, "Of Mice and Men", he has left fascinating reminiscences of his life there, and of his friends and neighbours. He also wrote charming poems about his garden.
Amongst other notable visitors to Bonchurch was Karl Marx. No self-respecting village is without its ghosts, and with these Bonchurch is well supplied. A phantom horseman, and a ghostly coach which used to pass along the village street – both these, according to the sceptics, were devices Hof smugglers to mask their illicit activities, for Bonchurch was notorious for smuggling. Ghostly hauntings were also ascribed to a room in St. Boniface House, where furniture was moved and beds stripped by a presence so disturbing that the room was closed, and later the house was demolished. A present-day resident hears sounds as of a vehicle going through the village when nothing is visible, so, maybe, Bonchurch is a haunted village still.
